Road Trip of a Lifetime

There are road trips, and then there are road trips, the kind where you drive across the country encountering wrong turns, lost time and entire days spent on the road. Wyatt Usie and his friends experienced the second on their way to Columbus.

All for Legacy, and the first Grand Prix of their lives.

Usie, 18, is playing with cards this weekend older than he is this weekend. But to hear the young gun tell it, he sounds like an old veteran at this game.

“I wasn't really that nervous,” he said of his first feature match, where he emerged victorious to move to 4-0 at Grand Prix Columbus. “We play Legacy every week at home, so I feel pretty comfortable.”

Really? No nerves at all in your first feature, sitting in the same roped-off area as fan favorite Paul Cheon?

“Okay, maybe a few nerves,” Usie admitted with a smile. “I did miss a trigger, and I had to go up and shake Paul's hand before this round.”

Wyatt Usie was off to a hot start at Grand Prix Columbus, moving to 4-0 after a win in the feature match area.

Meeting one of his favorite streamers was just one of the highlights of the weekend for Usie, who has never been to a tournament bigger than Friday Night Magic but said he follows the competitive scene voraciously from his home in Lafayette, Louisiana.

“I'm a huge fan of everyone, and I follow every piece of coverage on the pros,” he said. “Seeing and meeting some of those guys this weekend has been awesome.”

For someone so dedicated and excited, is it really any surprise he's had this date circled on his calendar since the moment the 2016 Grand Prix schedule was announced?

“I've been looking forward to this Grand Prix since I found out about it in December last year,” he explained. “I told my friends this is the tournament we had to go to, the only Legacy tournament in North America, no matter what it took.”

And so they did. Last week Usie and friends loaded up in his small truck and began the 20-hour drive to Columbus, the perfect graduation gift for Usie. A wrong turn along the way left them stranded in rush-hour Nashville traffic for hours, but the memories being made more than make the trip worth it for Usie.

“I'm loving every minute of this,” he said. “I have a friend who has been on the competitive grind for a while, and as I've watched his success I wanted more and more to be able to do it myself. This tournament has been great and I'm having a blast.”